This corporate-benefit deal disguised as ‘trade’ is set to overturn and degrade the regulations that frame our society and to hand power to corporations.

Essential elements of TTIP:
– ‘regulatory harmonisation’ with the US – essentially a race to the bottom in regulation – across everything
– ‘investor-state dispute settlement’ (ISDS), allowing transnational corporations to sue governments e.g. UK for the loss of all future profits resulting from any government action affecting those future profits, most likely to be legislation that protects us from transnational corporations e.g. health and safety, environmental, labour standards. Where already in operation around the world, ISDS is leading to big payouts from governments to transnational corporations or is ‘chilling’ legislation i.e. making legislators afraid to legislate.

Yet the TTIP negotiations are kept secret.

The parallel TransPacific Partnership has the same aims.

Once these agreements are in place, they supersede national sovereignty.

Any future government wishing to reverse harmful legislation on environmental, employment, health or social policy would be prevented from doing so by TTIP. Failure to adhere to the provisions of TTIP would render the UK a pariah in the international community, demonised to justify “intervention”.

Corporate hegemony influences politics by manipulating media and extensive lobbying. TTIP is a takeover of the political process in plain sight.